Shoghi Effendi's letters to the Bahá'í world reflected a
statesmanship far ahead of his time

"Unification
of the whole of mankind is the hall-mark of the stage which human society is now
approaching," he wrote in 1936. "Unity of family, of tribe, of city-state, and
nation have been successively attempted and fully established. World unity is the goal
towards which a harassed humanity is striving. Nation building has come to an end. The
anarchy inherent in state sovereignty is moving towards a climax. A world, growing to
maturity, must abandon this fetish, recognize the oneness and wholeness of human
relationships, and establish once for all the machinery that can best incarnate this
fundamental principle of its life."